Improvement of Off-State Stress Critical Voltage by Using Pt-gated AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors

Journal Article · Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1149/1.3578388· OSTI ID:1081701

Lo, C. F. ^[1]; Liu, L. ^[2]; Kang, Tsung Sheng ^[2]; Gila, Brent P. ^[2]; Pearton, S. J. ^[1]; Kravchenko, Ivan I ^[3]; Laboutin, O. ^[4]; Cao, Yu ^[4]; Johnson, Wayne J. ^[4]; Ren, F. ^[1]

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1. University of Florida
2. University of Florida, Gainesville
3. ORNL
4. Kopin Corporation, Taunton, MA

By replacing the commonly used Ni/Au gate metallization with Pt/Ti/Au, the critical voltage for degradation of AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) during off-state biasing stress was significantly increased. The typical critical voltage for the HEMTs with Ni/Au gate metallization was around -55V. By sharp contrast, no critical voltage was observed for the HEMTs with Pt/Ti/Au gate metallization, even up -100V, which was the instrumental limitation in this experiment. Both Schottky forward and reverse gate characteristics of the Ni/Au degraded once the gate voltage passed the critical voltage of -55V. There was no degradation exhibited for the HEMTs with Pt/Ti/Au gate metallization.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1081701
• Journal Information: Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 7; ISSN 1099-0062
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English